


like the sunshine

by Polexia_Aphrodite



Series: in the blue dark [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky's missing an arm, Darcy's kind of smart about people, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Female Friendship, Fluff, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, SHIELD Agent Darcy Lewis, Sexual Content, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2017-12-25 11:13:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polexia_Aphrodite/pseuds/Polexia_Aphrodite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A continuation of <i>in the blue dark</i>. Further episodes from the lives of Bucky and Darcy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the breakfast

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically me relieving myself of all the plot bunnies that came up while I was writing _in the blue dark_ , but wouldn't fit into that story. It'll just be a series of vignettes/episodes, not necessarily connected to each other. I thought I'd start out with something kind of simple and fluffy, but the next chapter will be more Serious.
> 
> As with _in the blue dark_ there was no beta reader for this, so I accept responsibility for whatever's wrong with it. Thanks for reading, and hope you all like it.

It’s just past six when Bucky sees Darcy in the sterile, white-tiled hallways of SHIELD headquarters. 

“Lewis,” he barks at her, making sure she can hear him over the din of SHIELD agents shuffling out to the lobby, off to wherever they call home (Darcy’s convinced most of them live in pods).

Darcy stops and turns at the sound of her name, at the sound of his voice. Next to the dark-suited, briefcase-holding, grim-faced crowd of SHIELD agents pushing past them, Bucky couldn’t stick out more. He’s propped up against a blank, white wall, hands in the pockets of his jeans, wearing a scuffed leather jacket; his face is covered in stubble and his long hair is pushed back. He’s got an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth and another tucked behind his ear.

Darcy smiles when she sees him, ducking her head and making her way through the crowd. Bucky nods as she comes up to him, trying to look nonchalant, trying to hide the fact that he’s been looking for her for fifteen minutes. The truth is that he’s been looking forward to this all day: taking her home and taking her to bed. Since he and Darcy started…whatever it is they’re doing, being with her has meant everything ( _everything_ ) to him. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” He plucks the cigarette out of his mouth and twirls it between his fingers. He’s been in Avengers briefings all day, itching for Darcy and a smoke, and now he’s ready to have both.

“On my way to the lab for this evening’s scheduled Darcy Lewis Dance Party.” She grins and holds up her iPod.

Bucky frowns, because whatever she’s talking about runs counter to all of his ideas for this evening. “What?”

“Something I started doing after the first time Thor left. Whenever he’s off the planet, Jane becomes an annoying, mopey sad sack. _So_ ,” she gestures dramatically, “I invade her lab with infectiously cheerful pop music and dance around like an idiot until she smiles.”

“Hm. Didn’t realize the big guy’d left.”

“He left this morning. Didn’t you hear them last night?”

Bucky shrugs and rolls his eyes. He wouldn’t give up staying over at Darcy’s for anything, but Thor and Jane’s sex noises have the tendency to be absurdly loud; he keeps trying to persuade Darcy to get Tony to reinforce her walls. 

“It’s _always_ worse right before he leaves,” she continues, “Welcome to my nightmare.”

Bucky grimaces and wonders if she’d be willing to move her apartment to one of the empty units down the hall (but he knows she wouldn’t).

“Anyway, I’ve learned it’s best to just nip this in the bud: get Jane up before she lets herself get too down. So, if you’ll excuse me,” she gives him a pointed look, “I have work to do.”

She starts down the hall, but he catches her by one wrist. Just as quickly, he lets her go as a final SHIELD agent rounds the corner, straggling behind the herd that passed them a moment ago. Bucky rubs at the back of his neck, waiting for the agent, with his grey flannel suit and suspicious gaze, to pass. 

Within the confines of Darcy’s apartment in Stark Tower, they’ve spent the last month in a lavender haze of long conversations and slow kisses, of sex and lazy weekends where they barely make it out of bed. At headquarters, though, they’ve carefully avoided showing it. They still haven’t discussed what they are to each other, exactly, or how much they want to let the others know, so they keep their cards close to their chest.

“If it’s all the same to you, Lewis,” Bucky grins at her and rocks back on his heels, his hands tucked safely in his pockets, “I’ll be coming with you. You know how I love to see you make a fool of yourself.” 

Darcy gives him a stern look. “ _No_. Absolutely not. It’s Friday night, and I have a whole plan in place that involves drinks and more dancing and _definitely_ no friends who are guys.”

“Friends?” he scoffs and leans in towards her. Even if they haven't discussed it yet, he certainly knows he's more to her than that. 

She rolls her eyes and tries to pretend like the nearness of him doesn’t make her stomach flip. Like he doesn’t trigger something deep inside her that just wants to hold and be held. “Or whatever.”

With the hallway emptied, he takes her wrist again and pulls her into a recess in the wall, near a drinking fountain (because in the last few weeks, he’s figured out all the places where SHIELD’s cameras don’t reach). Now that he knows he’ll have to trudge back to Brooklyn tonight, to the guest room of Steve’s apartment, he can’t let her go without kissing her, without getting his hands tangled in her hair and wrapped around her waist, without hearing her sigh his name just once. 

When he finally lets her go, to make her way to Jane’s lab, they’re wearing matching dopey, dazed grins that are surprisingly hard to get rid of.

***

Darcy’s a little surprised at how quickly the evening progresses, how game Jane is to go out. They drag Erik along, because they both like him, and it’s been so long since it’s been just the three of them. Darcy appreciates Erik’s European sensibility – the way he’s relaxed and pragmatic, and not particularly hung up on the kinds of things that drive her and Jane crazy. 

The three of them tear through the bars and dance floors of Lower Manhattan until almost two in the morning, then stumble back to Darcy’s apartment to pass out. In the end, Darcy has a dim recollection of curling up next to Jane in her bed (because, Jane argues, she doesn’t want to go back to her apartment and sleep alone), but the Jane who shakes her awake the next morning is decidedly less cuddly.

“Darcy,” she hisses, her hands on Darcy’s shoulders, “ _Darcy_.”

Darcy rubs at her eyes, squinting against the light filtering in through her curtains.

“’time is it?” she mumbles, reaching for her phone and glasses on the nightstand. “What’s going on?”

“Agent Barnes is in your kitchen.”

“Oh,” she slides on her glasses. 

“Darcy, _why_ is Agent Barnes in your kitchen?”

“The hell if I know.”

Fully awake now, Darcy scrambles up and to the bathroom, brushing her teeth and pulling back the rat’s nest that her hair has become. She pulls on jeans and a sweater and hands Jane shorts and a t-shirt, since coming out in the dress she passed out in would only magnify their collective embarrassment. 

***

“Good morning, ladies,” Erik chirps from Darcy’s dining table when they come out. His mouth is full and he waves a fork at them before digging into the plate on the table in front of him.

Bucky just nods at them as they sit, handing each of them a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast, and mugs of coffee before turning back to Erik, who’s chattering away in Swedish. Whatever he’s saying makes Bucky’s eyebrows lift and the corners of his mouth twitch up.

Darcy eyes him suspiciously and interrupts them. “Since when can you cook? And speak Swedish?”

He looks at her with one eyebrow cocked. “I can do a lot of things.”

“But why are you doing them _here_?” He can see the cagey look on her face; he can tell she’s not sure where any of this is going.

“Obviously you forgot we were supposed to shoot today,” he sniffs imperiously, “When you didn’t show, I figured I’d come over here and drag you to the range. JARVIS let me in.” 

He turns back to Erik, his explanation clearly over, and carries on where they left off. Darcy manages to keep her expression placid during all of this, because she knows he has a key to her apartment, and she's pretty sure they hadn't scheduled any time at the range.

Darcy and Jane eat in silence; Darcy’s not particularly keen to admit it just now, but it’s kind of perfect, as post-drinking breakfasts go, and she wonders where he got the supplies to make it, given that her fridge is notoriously empty. Instead of thinking about that (how damn thoughtful he is, how domestic and comfortable this is, and what _would_ she do without him?) Darcy focuses on Erik, trying to glean from his unintelligible prattle if he’s sharing any of the previous night’s more humiliating stories (Darcy really hadn’t _meant_ to throw up on that police car, and she really had _almost_ stopped Jane from perpetrating what would later become known as the Great Karaoke Incident of 2014). Out of the corner of her eye, though, she can see Jane silently sizing Bucky up, absorbing the easy way he makes his way around Darcy’s apartment, the way he seems to know where she keeps all her cooking utensils, and where to find paper towels and sponges.

After a while, Erik finishes his coffee and stands to go, making his goodbyes and shaking Bucky’s hand before he shows himself out. Something indefinably masculine passes between them; it’s apparent in the weight of their handshake and the nod of accord from Erik, but it’s nothing that Darcy can really claim to understand.

“I should go, too,” Jane stands and gives them her most beatific smile, “Thanks for breakfast, Agent Barnes.”

“James,” Bucky tells her, “Please.”

Jane’s smile widens, “James.”

Darcy stands abruptly and grabs Jane by the elbow, marching her to the door. It’s obvious enough that Jane has put together some of what’s going on, and her shit-eating grins are already starting to wear thin. Behind them, she can hear Bucky dumping their dirty dishes into her sink.

“Darcy, are you _seeing_ him?” Jane asks as she steps into the hall; her voice is an excited whisper.

“Stop it, Jane. Go _home_ ,” Darcy gives her a shove down the hall, towards her door. She can’t keep the stupid smirk off her face, though, and it gives her (them) away easily. 

Darcy closes the door with a quiet _click_ and pads back into the kitchen, where Bucky’s leaning against the counter, sipping coffee out of a blue mug emblazoned with the Culver University seal.

“Were we really supposed to go shoot this morning?” she asks with one eyebrow lifted.

Bucky shakes his head and smirks at her, “Stopped by to fuck you awake…”

She sighs and tries not to smile, “Such a way with words.”

“…but instead found Selvig passed out on your couch, drowning in his own drool.”

Darcy wrinkles her nose and casts a wary glance at the damp spot on her couch. 

“Gross.”

“And here I thought it was supposed to be a ladies’ night.” He sets the mug down and crosses his arms, feigning irritation.

“Erik doesn’t count. Besides, the two of you seem to get along well.” Darcy lifts herself onto the counter, swinging her legs, her feet bumping against the cupboard doors.

He shrugs, “I reckon he just wants someone to speak his mother tongue with.”

“Speaking of, where did _that_ come from?”

“Red Room did all sorts to me, kitten. Not the least of which were language lessons.”

That makes her frown. He’s told her a little about the Red Room, enough to make her hate that he had to live through it. Enough to make her understand the nightmares that jolt him awake, sweating and tearing at the sheets.

Bucky sees her concern on her face, and crosses the distance between them in three long strides, stepping between her knees, sliding his arms around her waist and pulling her against his chest. She buries her face against his shoulder, pressing against his soft, gray t-shirt and breathing him in deep; he smells like motorcycle oil and dish soap and bacon grease. It’s grounding. Whatever happened to him before, he’s _here_ now, in her kitchen, with his arms around her and hers around him.

“Jane’s figured us out,” she murmurs, “Probably Erik, too. Those two are too damn smart for their own good.”

He pulls back to look at her. He saw the knowing twinkle in Jane’s eyes, and before either of them came out, Erik gave him a sincere and well-rehearsed speech on the subject of dating Darcy. “Does it bother you? Them knowing?”

“Nah.” She meets his eyes and sees the distant, uncertain look behind his breakfast-making bravado. “ _No_. Sneaking around wouldn’t have worked forever, anyway, with her living next door. Besides,” she shrugs inside the circle of his arms, “they’re my friends. Doesn’t Steve know?”

“That’s a little more complicated.” He looks away; his hands stroking her back absently.

“How’s that?” Her face crumples a little; she can’t pretend it doesn’t sting, the idea that she’s a secret he’s keeping.

“He lost a lot after the crash. Lost a lot of people. He doesn’t really deal well with change.” Bucky shoots her an apologetic look, but he knows Steve well enough, and he’s already had to suffer through dozens of Steve’s hangdog looks when he tells him he won’t be coming back to Brooklyn for the night. 

Darcy purses her lips and nods. There’s a lot she still doesn’t know about Bucky and Steve, and what they’ve meant to each other. She tries her best to understand, anyway.

“Don’t give me that face,” he taps her under the chin and brings her eyes up to his, “You know you’re my girl, Lewis.”

“Am I?” She knows she _is_ , she knows she’s fishing, but she wants to hear him say it.

“’Til the day you don’t want to be anymore,” he tells her, because he already knows that she’s going to have to be the one to call this off; he won’t be able to.

She hums and leans her head back against his shoulder. His hands slide up the back of her sweater, warm flesh and cold metal sliding up to the strap of her bra and back down.

“Now what?” 

He steps back. “ _Now_ you need a shower. You still smell like liquor and sweat.”

She rolls her eyes, “Like that makes a difference to you.”

“C’mon,” he gives her a puckish smile and tugs her by the wrist towards her hall, “Gonna get you washed up, then ‘m gonna bury my face between your legs. Maybe we can even do both at once.”

“Aren’t you a multi-tasker,” she tries to roll her eyes at him again, but all she can do is grin.


	2. the arm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't think this would be going up this fast, but I've been home sick since yesterday afternoon, so here we are. This chapter is sort-of-kind-of connected to the Pepper scene in the last chapter of _in the blue dark_.
> 
> Hope you all like it. As always, thanks for reading, kudo-ing, and commenting!

Bucky hates this. He really does. As he sits in Tony’s Stark Tower workshop, surrounded by half-built gadgets, he starts to doubt the sanity of letting Tony work on the bionic arm, as overwhelmingly eager as he had been to help (or to get his hands on such obviously advanced technology). The truth is, though, that the arm _had_ gotten pretty damaged in the last battle, more so than he’d ever seen it before, and Tony obviously had the expertise to patch it up, so what choice did he have?

But Tony carted his arm away twenty minutes ago, and since then Bucky’s been left alone, shirtless and arm-less, slumped on a tacky, black leather couch. It always feels strange when the arm is detached; it’s so easy to forget that it isn’t really a part of him. He tries not to let it, but after a while, seeing the stump in his peripheral vision starts to get to him. He unfolds his jacket from the seat next to him, pushing his right arm into one sleeve and draping the other half over his left shoulder.

He’s picking at a crusty stain on his jeans, trying to decide how long he’s going to wait before he tracks down Stark, takes what’s his and leaves, when Darcy walks in. It’s quite possibly the last thing he wanted to happen, for her to see him like this, and he freezes from head to toe. 

“What’re you doing here?” he asks. In his haste to wipe the panic from his voice, he overcorrects and it comes out harsher than he had wanted. 

She blinks and bites at her bottom lip. Bucky feels his stomach drop; he hates it when he’s too hard with her, and it happens more often than he’d like.

“Looking for Tony,” she shrugs it off, “That stupid dishwasher thing. I’ve had a lot of shitty landlords, but he’s starting to take the cake.”

Bucky nods, “He should be back soon.”

After a few moments of awkward silence, Darcy starts to wander around the shop, poking at things Tony would kill her for even _looking_ at, turning chunks of metal and plastic over in her hands. 

Bucky shifts uncomfortably on the couch; he _knows_ that she knows, empirically, that his left arm is, essentially, a prosthetic, but there’s a special kind of vulnerability that comes with taking it off. It’s not something he had ever planned on sharing with her. Ever.

“So,” she says finally, leaning back against a counter covered in machine parts, “What are you in for?”

He clears his throat. “Just...hanging out.”

Darcy’s eyes narrow; she knows he barely tolerates Tony. “No, you’re not. What’s going on here?” her eyes scan over him, “Are you not wearing a shirt?

“It’s—“ he sighs and gives in, “My…arm got a little beat up in the last fight. Usually I just fix it myself, but he offered, so…”

“Oh.” Darcy raises her eyebrows, pushes herself off the counter and moves to sit on the couch next to him. 

He shifts away from her, because the idea of her touching the mangled flesh of his shoulder sends a chill through him. He can’t look at her just now, but he hopes she’s not looking at the empty sleeve hanging between them.

“Does it hurt?” she asks him, meeting his eyes when he looks over at her.

“Aches a little sometimes.”

She nods solemnly.

“Can I see?”

The look he gives her is so filled with horror, she almost feels bad for asking. But she can’t shake the feeling that this is something important; that knowing this better will mean knowing _him_ better.

“Seen every other part of you, haven’t I?” She grins up at him and bumps his knee with hers, trying to lighten the mood.

“’S’different.”

“You let Tony see.”

“Stark’s just some guy,” he shrugs, “You’re…different.”

She frowns and pulls herself into his lap, straddling his hips with her thighs. Her arms curl around his shoulders, her fingers weaving into his hair. Everyone else sees his brashness, how sarcastic and impulsive and gruff he can be; she knows she’s one of the few he lets see his reservations and self-doubt. There's a kind of responsibility that comes with that.

“Whatever you want. But whatever’s under there,” she glances at his shoulder, still covered by his jacket, “it doesn’t change anything. I’m still here. Still your girl.”

Bucky looks at her. He knows what she’s saying is true. He knows that part of him will always fight against what he _knows_ about her, will always try to convince him that she’s only a step away from hating him, from leaving him.

“I—“ he starts, because he wants there to be a better explanation for why he should keep this part of him walled off from her, but he just sighs in resignation and shrugs out of the jacket, shimmying it down his right arm and letting it fall to the side in a pile.

Her fingers go straight to his shoulder, resting just above the dip where it comes to an abrupt end. She tries to avoid reacting, to avoid making him uncomfortable, but she can’t help that her jaw drops a little. The wound is long-healed, just a few soft curves of flesh and scar tissue where his arm should be. But at the center of his shoulder, about where, Darcy estimates, his arm socket would have been, is a deep hole lined with black metal and wires.

“How did it happen?” she asks him quietly.

“Don't remember. Steve thinks it happened when I fell. In ’45.”

“What do _you_ think happened?” She watches his face carefully.

“The Red Room had a lot of scientists and doctors with a lot of bright ideas.” His tone is flat and cynical.

“You think…” her brow furrows, “…oh.”

The idea that someone did this _to_ him, like plucking the wings off an insect, makes her want to hit something. Hard.

“Don’t you ever tell Steve I said that,” he snaps suddenly, pulling her out of her meditation on how much she wishes she could destroy everything that ever hurt him.

She perks up and mimes zipping her lips.

Bucky shifts towards her, nuzzling at the side of her throat. The conversation's gotten too heavy for him, for them. That, and the press of her hips against his has him ready to change the subject. 

“Told him – Steve – about us.”

"Yeah?” she leans back and smiles down at him. She looks so awfully lovely, sitting in his lap with her little hands spread on his bare chest. A little rush of pride goes through him, because, like she said, she _is_ his girl. Because she’ll take him, warts and all.

“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs, smiling back at her before bringing his hand to the back of her head and pulling her lips down to his.

Darcy’s arms tighten around him. His arm slides around her back, pushing her hair out of the way and wrapping around her waist. She hears his little huff of frustration.

“Hate not bein’ able to hold on to you right.”

“You’ve got me,” she whispers against his temple, “C’mere.”

Darcy slides off him and leans back on the couch, pulling him over her. Bucky contemplates, for a brief moment, the fact that Tony _should_ be back soon and maybe this wouldn’t be the best position for him to find them in, but then he’s on top of her, and she’s the only thing he can think about or see – all blue-grey eyes and full lips and dark hair spread across the seat of the couch. It takes him another moment to realize what she’s done – his left side, stump included, and her right is pressed tight against the back of the couch. With his right arm around her and her back against the seat, it’s easier to feel like nothing’s missing. Like he’s still in control.

“Better?” she looks up at him and smiles, presses her lips to the corner of his mouth.

He wants to sling something back at her, something playful and teasing about what a know-it-all she is, but nothing’s making it past the thick, heavy feeling in his throat, so he just kisses her back. She frames his face with her hands and wraps her free leg around his hips. She pushes her center up against his burgeoning hard-on. 

“You’re coming back to my place after this, right?”

He grunts a reply and thrusts up against her. The arm doesn’t seem to matter much anymore; all he can think about is how much he missed her during his last mission, how much he loves the contented little sighs she gives when she’s under him, and how, underneath layers of fabric, she’s undoubtedly already wet for him.

At the sound of footsteps in the hallway leading into the workshop, Bucky reluctantly jerks up and off of her, just in time to see Tony and Pepper step into the room.

Tony looks at them, his face crestfallen, the bionic arm cradled in his hands. Pepper turns to him with a smug smile. Tony sets down the arm and pulls his wallet out of his back pocket, leafs through it, and hands her a crisp bill. Pepper’s smile widens; she flashes them a satisfied look, hands Tony a stack of papers, and turns on her heels, sauntering back down the hall.

“You two just cost me fifty bucks and my pride,” Tony glowers at them, “You couldn’t keep your hands to yourself for one afternoon?”

Bucky steadfastly ignores him, “Arm’s done?” 

Tony mumbles under his breath, waving Bucky over to him and fitting the metal into his shoulder socket.

“What are _you_ here for anyway?” He looks at Darcy, but before she can answer, he raises his finger, flashing a severe look, “ _Don’t_. Don’t say this is about the dishwasher thing.”

“So you _do_ remember,” Darcy crows. 

While the two of them hash it out, slinging barbs back and forth like they just walked out of a Howard Hawks movie, Bucky shakes out the bionic arm and flexes its fingers. Whatever Tony did to it, it feels better than it has in months.

“C’mon, doll,” he interrupts them and grabs Darcy's hand, “We got business to take care of."

Bucky murmurs a few words of thanks to Tony before he drapes his arm around Darcy's shoulders and drags her out of the workshop. 

“Fix my goddamn dishwasher, Stark,” she calls back as she trots alongside him, grinning and sliding her hand into his back pocket as they make their way to the elevators.


	3. the fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to Britt for cheerleading this verse and looking over this chapter. Thanks also to everyone who had kudo-ed and commented, and helped motivate me to pay this story a little attention when I wandered away from it. 
> 
> As a disclaimer, there's a line in this chapter that I stole for another story of mine, because at one point (during an earlier draft) I thought I wasn't going to post this at all, but I gave myself permission to plagiarize from myself, so. Pardon me.
> 
> Hope you guys like this one :)

The God’s honest truth is that Bucky Barnes could give a rat’s ass about the Avengers. He understands, with a practiced cynicism, how SHIELD pulls their strings, and it turns his stomach. The only missions worth going on, he’s decided after a few months of working with them, are solo missions (though he usually come back from those with too much blood on his hands) or plainclothes missions with Steve. 

After SHIELD captured him, when, after being picked apart by a hoard of psychiatrists, the first trickle of early memories had started to come back, he couldn’t stand Steve. Couldn’t stand his cautiousness, and the dejected looks he’d get when Bucky didn’t remember some stupid detail about Brooklyn in the 1930s. Things have gotten better, though. They work together like gangbusters, and Steve _has_ been undeniably generous and patient with him.

They’re tracking a smuggling ring in Amsterdam, with Darcy back at their hotel as mission support, when things start to go haywire. The mission turns into a giant clusterfuck, but it’s the kind of clusterfuck he and Steve are starting to get used to: the intelligence SHIELD gave them is only half-accurate (Steve, ever the optimist, insists that it’s 75% accurate), and even with Darcy’s voice coming through the radios in their ears with new information, they still find themselves ensconced in a series of close calls and near misses. 

When Fury interjects, when he overrides Darcy and starts barking at them through the feed, the whole thing really falls apart. When Steve angrily turns off his radio, Bucky finds no reason not to follow his lead. That they can, at the end of the day, call the mission a success can only be attributed to Bucky and Steve’s determination to not fuck up despite the chaos.

When they finally drag themselves back to their hotel, they’re both tired, covered in a film of sweat and dirt. They’ve barely made it through the door of their double room when Darcy bursts in, coming through a door that connects her neighboring room to theirs. She's got one of her usual, thick-knit sweaters on, with her hair pulled back and her brow furrowed. After the mess they just lived through, all Bucky thought about on the way back was getting his arms around her, but even _he_ can tell something's wrong.

“What the fuck.” Her voice is ragged, tense and too loud, bouncing off the room’s bare walls.

“Hey, Darce,” Steve gives her a little wave and shrugs off his jacket. Bucky hangs back; he can see the livid look in her eyes and it’s not something he wants to get too close to.

“What the _fuck_ happened to your communications link?” she barks at them, and the sound of it makes Steve pause and stand straight up, fumbling for an answer.

In the absence of an immediate response, Darcy lunges at him, grabbing at the collar of his shirt and pulling it open. Steve struggles with her for a moment (Bucky can’t tell if he’s trying to help her or get her off of him), before giving up and dropping his arms to the side. Darcy’s fingers dive under the fabric and yank out a series of wires, followed by a lump of black plastic. 

Darcy flips it over and over in her hands. 

“It’s turned off. You turned it _off_?” she gapes up at him.

“Things got a little hairy out there,” Steve explains in his best Reasonable Voice, “When Fury started intercepting, it got to be too much.”

She sputters for a moment, then pushes past him to Bucky, who frantically pulls his radio out and hands it to her. He knows what she’ll find – that his is turned off, too – and he cringes in anticipation. He can almost see the steam coming out of her ears.

“Don’t you know what it means when this goes dead?” she’s yelling at them now, gesturing emphatically with the tiny radios in her hands. “I thought I killed fucking Captain America. And _you_ ,” she looks at Bucky with such venom that he flinches, “I don’t even know where to start with you. You two are assholes.”

She spins back towards the door to her room, her fists clenched and hair swinging. Bucky glances at Steve, who looks like he’s a million miles away. He rounds the bed, pushing past Steve and reaching out for her. His fingers close around her arm and gently pull.

“C’mon, Darcy.”

“Don’t touch me,” she throws him off, “I have to call Coulson back.”

She slams the door behind her; it feels like she just punched him in the gut. It hits him that this, _this_ , might be the moment he’s been dreading for so long – the moment when she kicks him off of her, when he goes back to being alone. He wishes like hell that Steve weren’t still standing behind him, that he hadn’t seen what he did and heard what she’d said to him.

The rush of dread and resentment flowing through him is interrupted by Steve’s soft voice over his shoulder.

“Go after her, Buck.”

Bucky scrubs at the stubble on the back of his neck, a habit he’s picked up since cutting his hair short. 

“I don’t think she wants me to.”

“Yes, she does.” Steve’s voice is quiet, and Bucky watches him carefully. He wonders if he’s thinking about Peggy, about how he let the radio line go dead on her. The closed-off, torn-up look on his face seems to suggest that he is. “Go on. That’s an order.”

Bucky rolls his eyes at the command, but does it anyway.

When he steps into the room, Darcy’s just hanging up her phone, setting it on her desk. She looks up, but she just sneers at him and starts towards the bathroom, yanking her hair down from its ponytail.

“I’m takin’ a shower,” she snaps at him, pulling her hair down and around her face, “You might as well just go back where you came from.”

“Darcy. Darce.” He grabs her wrist and pulls her towards him, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest. Her gaze is fixed on the floor, but even with her face down in the dim light, he can see that her cheeks are damp. “Christ, are you crying?”

She sniffs and looks up at him. Bucky’s stomach drops, because she _is_. She’s crying and he’s pretty sure he _made_ her cry and everything about this is suddenly so much more awful than it was a moment ago.

“These are tears of frustration and anger,” she declares, stabbing a finger into his chest.

He catches her hand between his and bends his face towards hers.

“I’m sorry about the radio thing,” he tells her, “It just didn’t seem like…I don’t know, like it would be this big a problem.”

She purses her lips.

“Don’t you ever do anything like that again. I’m serious, Bucky.” Darcy stares daggers at him, untouched by his attempt at an apology.

Despite the hard look on her face, Bucky pulls her against him, wrapping his arms tight around her torso. 

She struggles for a moment, pushing against his chest. “I’m _mad_ at you,” she insists.

“I know,” he tightens his arms around her until she stops fighting him, “I know.”

He kisses her over and over, on her temples, her cheeks, her mouth, her jawline and neck. She can’t help but soften against him, letting loose a deep sigh and slumping her shoulders. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again and again, like a mantra, _begging_ her to let him stay, begging her to keep him. “I won’t do it again. I promise.”

“You can’t leave me like that,” she murmurs against his shoulder, still covered by a thick layer of body armor.

He stills. “Like what?”

“Like you’re just _gone_. Like one minute I can hear your voice and the next minute I can’t. Like that.”

Bucky presses a kiss to the crown of her head, letting them stand like that for a long few minutes.

“I don’t want you to run support for my missions anymore,” he murmurs against her hair.

She leans back and smirks, “What, you’d rather go out with Coulson?”

He shrugs and looks away, “Maybe.”

“Like hell.” 

Her smirk turns into a real smile, and Bucky feels the pinched, sick feeling in his chest let up. 

“You don’t get to get rid of me just because you’re an idiot,” he raises an eyebrow at her, “Just be less stupid and this’ll work out fine.”

He wishes he could muster up a little indignation, but all he can do is nod.

Bucky reels a little, because he realizes now that this wasn’t the _end_ , it was just a fight, and they somehow stumbled to the other side of it. When he kisses her, he half expects it to be a sedate little peck, just a little light reassurance that they’re okay. But when her mouth opens against his, he falls apart.

Darcy clutches at his shoulders, her fingers clawing at his hair as her mouth devours his. When her hands drop to his belt buckle, yanking at the buttons of his fly, it’s all he can do to keep up. Finally, reluctantly, he nudges her away from him, tugging at the buttons of his shirt. 

“You do you.”

She gives him a frantic nod and pulls her sweater over her head.

He watches her as he shucks off his shirt, vest and pants, watches the sway of her hips as she pulls her pants and panties down her legs, watches the way her breasts shift and bounce as she slides her bra down her arms and to the floor. A part of him wishes that he could undress her, because he loves that, but something too anxious and desperate is hanging between them for slow reveals and soft caresses.

“ _Bucky_ ,” she gasps, naked and reaching out for him, and he matches her urgency, wrapping an arm around her waist, pressing them together, stomach to stomach. He walks her backwards until her knees hit the bed and she tumbles down.

It doesn’t seem like the time for the usual preliminaries, so Bucky just covers her with his body, spreading her legs wide, positioning himself and pushing up into her. She’s snug and hot around him, with her heels dug into the mattress and her fingers pressing into his lower back, pulling him closer.

“I thought you were dead,” she gasps as he fills her, as his hips drive into hers.

“I’m not,” he pants back, “I’m here.”

Since he came back from being the Winter Soldier, since he started this thing with Darcy as Bucky Barnes and not some nameless assassin, he’s relished making love slowly and tenderly and in all the ways he used to wish he could. This is the first time he’s really done this with her: a good, old-fashioned fucking – hard, fast, and life-affirming.

She’s impossibly wet, fluttering and clenching around him. While their hips move in rapid time, pumping and thrusting against each other, Bucky keeps his mouth near her ear, his hand on the back of her head. In a quiet purr, he tells her how much he wants her and needs her and ( _oh, fuck it_ ) loves her (because it’s about time she knew, anyway).

It’s hard to care about the fact that her cries and moans can likely be heard in Steve’s room; telling her to be quieter is completely beyond his control. He pulls her through a long, keening orgasm and follows her, coming so hard his (real) hand shakes for a full minute after he’s finished spending inside her.

Bucky pushes off of her, limp and oversensitive, and lands on his back on the mattress next to her. His eyelids are already growing heavy.

“Do you think Steve heard that next door?”

He looks over at her. She’s frowning, but still struggling to catch her breath. Her skin is flushed and slick with sweat. Every time he sees her like this, he’s sure it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“I think they heard that in the _lobby_.”

She cringes, but he just smiles at her, tugs her towards him until her cheek is pressed against his chest, and lets sleep take him.


End file.
